“Cagliari would be the last team I’d coach”, Claudio Ranieri

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After spells with Napoli, Chelsea, Atlético Madrid and Inter, Claudio Ranieri is by far the most experienced coach still in the game. At 71, the Italian coach is with Cagliari. A team he hopes to retire with.

“I’ve decided that Cagliari will be the last team I’ll coach. I would make an exception only for an intriguing national team, and I make it clear that I am not a candidate for the Azzurri bench. Yes, I’ll stop at Cagliari, but I don’t know when. All joking aside,” Ranieri continues, “it’s the right place to stop, and I feel I’ve come full circle. This is where my career began, because when Cagliari called me up 35 years ago and bet on a young man with no experience, it was the gamble of my life. At the time, I didn’t even know if I would become a coach. We started with the idea of trying to get back into Serie B in a few years’ time, but in two years we went from Serie C to Serie A. Since then, I’ve never stopped thinking about Cagliari,” the 71-year-old revealed to La Repubblica.